US President George Bush said tonight that mass shootings are a reminder that people must be willing to raise a red flag about others’ disturbing behaviour.
“One of the lessons of these tragedies is to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behaviour, you do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look” the President said during an appearance at a high school in Ohio.
Cho Seung-Hui shot and killed 32 people and committed suicide on Monday in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern US history.
In between his shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, he found time to mail a package of writings, photos and videos to the NBC television network.
Fellow students said he was picked on at school.
“If you are a parent and your child is, you know, doing strange things on the internet, pay attention to it and not be afraid to ask for help and not be afraid to say ’I am concerned about what I am seeing,”’ Mr Bush said.
Long before he massacred 32 people in the worst mass shooting in US history, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was bullied by fellow students at school, who mocked his shyness and the strange way he talked, former classmates said.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech student who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Virginia, with Cho in 2003, recalled that the South Korean immigrant, who portrayed himself as persecuted and ranted about rich kids in a chilling video first broadcast last night, almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho’s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled.
Finally, after the teacher threatened him to give him a failing grade, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded “like he had something in his mouth,” Davids said.
“As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ’Go back to China,”’ Davids said.
The high school classmates’ accounts add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and could shed light on Cho’s state of mind in the video rant he mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage on Monday at Virginia Tech.
NBC received the package yesterday. It contained a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement from Cho, 28 video clips and 43 photos – many of them showing Cho brandishing handguns.
“Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats,” Cho, who came to the US in 1992 and whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington, said in the often-incoherent video.
“Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn’t enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfil your hedonistic needs. You had everything”.
Among the victims of the massacre were two other Westfield High graduates: Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women graduated from the high school last year. Police said it is not clear whether Cho singled them out.
Stephanie Roberts, 22, a fellow member of Cho’s graduating class at Westfield High, said she never witnessed anyone picking on Cho in high school.
But she said friends of hers who went to middle school with Cho told her they recalled him getting picked on there.
“There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him,” Ms Roberts said.
“He didn’t speak English really well and they would really make fun of him.”
Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a roommate of hers on campus, Christina Lilick , found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the noticeboard on her door. Lilick went to the same high school as Cho, according to Lilick’s Facebook page.
1 response so far ↓
Marie // April 21, 2007 at 1:39 am
i agree with this this man was manic for a long time the teachers were aware of his behavior. why then did not the Administrators listen to some of the teachers who were aware of this mad man action in class………some one failed these students…i am very upset and think something should have been done to remove people who are acting in anyway that is not normal surely these educators are aware of what is normal and not normal……..i am 75 years old and i do hold this college responsible to all these students who trusted them to keep them safe but fail to……these parents should rise up for answers…..they know the answers but they would like to hear it from them mouths of these leaders at Virginai Tech i sure would love to hear why they overlooked this mad student and did not react to have him removed……please may i have a answer that i can understand…